Want of breath compelled Madame Montoni to stop. If anything could have made Emily smile in these moments, it would have been this speech of her aunt, delivered in a voice very little below a scream, and with a vehemence of gesticulation and of countenance, that turned the whole into burlesque. Emily saw, that her misfortunes did not admit of real consolation, and, contemning the commonplace terms of superficial comfort, she was silent; while Madame Montoni, jealous of her own consequence, mistook this for the silence of indifference, or of contempt, and reproached her with want of duty and feeling.
“O! I suspected what all this boasted sensibility would prove to be!” rejoined she; “I thought it would not teach you to feel either duty, or affection, for your relations, who have treated you like their own daughter!”
“Pardon me, madam,” said Emily, mildly, “it is not natural to me to boast, and if it was, I am sure I would not boast of sensibility—a quality, perhaps, more to be feared, than desired.”
“Well, well, niece, I will not dispute with you. But, as I said, Montoni threatens me with violence, if I any longer refuse to sign away my settlements, and this was the subject of our contest, when you came into the room before. Now, I am determined no power on earth shall make me do this. Neither will I bear all this tamely. He shall hear his true character from me; I will tell him all he deserves, in spite of his threats and cruel treatment.”
Emily seized a pause of Madame Montoni’s voice, to speak. “Dear madam,” said she, “but will not this serve to irritate the Signor unnecessarily? will it not provoke the harsh treatment you dread?”
“I do not care,” replied Madame Montoni, “it does not signify: I will not submit to such usage. You would have me give up my settlements, too, I suppose!”
“No, madam, I do not exactly mean that.”
“What is it you do mean then?”
“You spoke of reproaching the Signor,”—said Emily, with hesitation. “Why, does he not deserve reproaches?” said her aunt.
“Certainly he does; but will it be prudent in you, madam, to make them?”